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Thursday, November 6, 2014

As we head into tech weekend for the beautifully lyrical Big Love, we're getting ready to celebrate with some killer music! Each character has chosen their favorite song, creating a rocking Big Love playlist! Click on each link to start off your weekend the RIGHT way!

Lydia's Pick: "War (What Is It Good For?)" by Edwin Starr
Lydia, ever the peace-keeper, resonates with Edwin Starr's strong and forceful song that demands peace in place of war. Leave it to Lydia to bring a social message into the party grooves!

Nikos's Pick - "Got Til It's Gone" by Janet Jackson (feat. Joni Mitchell)
Sentimental Nikos just likes songs that remind him of middle school dance parties. And any song that samples Joni Mitchell is alright in his book!

Thyona sure doesn't need a man to have a good time! And just like Pink, her idea of a good time is getting into some trouble - watch out guys!

Constantine's Pick - "He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)" by The Crystals
Constantine has some - ahem - interesting notions when it comes to relationships, which may harken back to a simpler (and more uncomfortable) time in American pop music, as reflected in this song by the Motown girl group The Crystals.

Olympia is all about the simple pleasures in life: fashion, beauty products, and of course, flirtatious liaisons with gorgeous men. Nothing taps into her most profound desires like Whitney Houston's ode to dancing the night away in the arms of someone who loves her.

Oed is the strong silent type - and maybe just a little bit moodier than his brothers. So of course he's attracted to the grungy and romantic Nirvana. Cobain's lyrics just speak to him, man.

Piero's Pick - "My Way" by Frank Sinatra
Classy, independent, charming, forthright - that's Piero. Really, there's not much separating him from Sinatra - except of course for the mistresses and allegations of domestic abuse. But hey - a good man is hard to find!

Romantic Giuliano is Big Love's spokesperson for honoring oneself and being forthright and confident about one's inner desires. Beyonce's upbeat love song just speaks to his inner fly girl!Bella's Pick - That's Amore by Dean Martin
If there are two things that Bella believes in with all her heart, it's love and her homemade pizza. Lucky for her Dean Martin's classic song has them both!

Eleanor's departure from her native England and residency in the free-spirit world of Italy has unleashed her most intense sexual desires - allowing herself to be "carried off in a crowd, that in another minute will all be naked." So of course Adele's sexiest song taps into her sweet spot ;)

Thursday, October 30, 2014

One of the most exciting and enthralling parts of working on
a script created by Charles L. Mee is the opportunity to experience text and ideas from a menagerie of
authors, critics, theorists, pop culturists, and more. Big Love is one of a collection of Mee's plays, which together he calls The (Re)Making Project.

"I have pillaged the structures and
contents of the plays of Euripides and Brecht and stuff out of Soap Opera
Digest and the evening news and the internet…There is no such thing as an
original play."

Big Love itself is a loose adaptation of Aeschylus’s
The Suppliants which is based on The Legend of Io. He also draws ideas
and language from over 10 other sources, most taken between the time period of
1950-1999.

He also takes direct passages from The
Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon a Japanese court lady and author, under Empress Teishi (Sadako), during the Helian period who lived between 996-1017. The Pillow Book is a series of observations and musings from her
time as a court lady and her life in Japan. Within Big Love, direct text is taken from the first page of the book,
which includes an observation about the loveliest times of year, “In spring,
the dawn- in summer, the night- in autumn, the evening- in winter, the early
morning”.
Another direct piece of text within Big Love comes from Valarie Solanas who
is best known for her attempted murder of Andy Warhol is 1968.
Solanas is a radical American feminist writer who famously wrote the S.C.U.M.
Manifesto, which stands for, the “Society for Cutting Up Men”. Mee takes
language such as “The male is a biological accident…an incomplete female” and
places it in Big Love as one of the bride’s
arguments against men.

See which characters upon whom Mee bestows excerpts from The Pillow Book and "The S.C.U.M. Manifesto" in Big Love at Villanova Theatre, November 11th-23rd, Tuesday-Saturday at 8PM, Sundays at 2PM.

Thursday, September 11, 2014

The 1920s were a time of significant upheaval the world
over; World War I disrupted daily life, gender roles, and economics. While some
countries adapted more readily to the new social climate, British society
worked hard to re-establish Victorianism as a national identity. This meant
pushing British women from the workplace back into the home and attempting to
control the aesthetics of what a desirable and proper British woman could be.

The major media push shifted from celebrating women doing
their duty for the nation by taking on factory jobs to celebrating them for
returning to their kitchens to care for their children and menfolk at the end
of the war. Take this cocoa ad, for example: between January and March of 1919,
the British woman moves from manual laborer to doting wife and mother.

Alongside the mainstream media preference for housebound
homemaker, though, a culture surrounding beauty and femininity sprouted up.
Makeup became a necessity for the vast majority of women, rather than for just
the very wealthy or the prostitute. A slim body became the expectation, and
women took a new interest exercise and outdoor activity. Keeping yourself
beautiful and polished became a duty rather than an expression of vanity. This
shifted expectation was another way of reminding women what their place was:
the pretty, feminine, heterosexual ideal.

In this climate, fashion became politicized, most notably in
this question: to bob, or not to bob?

Long hair was the standard for much of modern British
history. However, the 1920s witnessed the rise of the bob, the now-ubiquitous
chin-or-higher length haircut. The introduction of this cut in the early part
of the decade caused a flurry of controversy; the bob was immediately
associated with flappers, and flappers were associated with the sexually
uninhibited. Women’s magazines, which also rose to prominence during this
decade, ran constant stories on whether the bob should be attempted, and
employers would think twice before hiring a woman with the style. To bob was to
mark yourself as a Modern Woman, a positive figure for us and for those who
embraced it at the time, but an anti-Victorian troublemaker for a society
invested in keeping women home and accounted for.

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Want to be as classy as the characters in Noël Coward's Fallen Angels? Drink the cocktails below and . . . well, at least you'll be feeling pretty cool! The characters of Villanova Theatre's upcoming (boozy) production of Fallen Angels were gracious enough to share their favorite cocktails with their loyal audiences.

Fred's Recommendation: The Dandy
This complex variant on the Manhattan includes all of Fred's favorite things: booze and pretension.

Willy's Recommendation: Whiskey and Soda
Just like Willy, this classic drink is straightforward and stiff.Make it yourself!2 Ounces ScotchClub SodaPour Scotch in a highball glass over ice. Top with club soda.

Jane's Recommendation: Blood Orange BelliniJane often longs for her time in Italy, and this cocktail brings her right back to that romantic and beautiful place - and the blood oranges are the reminiscent of the blood she draws when the talons come out!

Make it Yourself!4 Blood Oranges or 1/2 Cup Blood Orange Juice1 Bottle of Prosecco, chilledIn a measuring glass, juice the blood oranges. Evenly distribute the juice in 4 champagne glasses. Fill the rest of the glass with Prosecco.

Julia's Recommendation: Dirty Gin Martini
Classic, sophisticated, restrained, and just the littlest bit naughty, no other cocktail could more aptly speak to Julia's nature.Make it Yourself!
1 Tablespoon Dry Vermouth
2 Ounces Gin
2 Tablespoons Olive Juice
4 Olives
Swirl water in a martini glass and place in the freezer for 2-3 minutes. Meanwhile, fill a shaker with gin, vermouth, and olive juice and shake over ice. Shake hard 3-4 times. Remove chilled martini glass from freezer and strain martini in. Garnish with 4 olives on a skewer of your choice.

Saunder's Recommendation: The Painkiller
Julia and Fred's incredibly well-travelled maid learned this recipe while she was serving as a concubine for an Island king in the Caribbean.

Mix away friends, and make Noël Coward proud! And just remember: there is nothing classy about over-drinking!
Enjoy your happy hour at home before joining us for Fallen Angels, running September 23rd-October 5th at Villanova Theatre! Call 610-519-7474 or visit our website for tickets!

Thursday, May 8, 2014

I made the decision to apply to the Villanova Master's in Theatre Program on March 15th, 2012. Little did I know how much my life would change as a result of this decision. I graduated from college in May
2011 with little to no direction in life. I had accepted a graduate
assistantship in West Virginia to pursue a Master's in Business
Administration. Let me be clear, I am NOT a business-minded person. However, I made
a promise to myself: once I finished my MBA, I was going to devote my
life to my true passion - the arts.

I lasted one semester in that MBA program. By February 2012 I was
on the search again for a graduate program. I happened to
stumble upon an assistantship opportunity offered through the Office of Residence Life at Villanova. I applied to that position, and
perused the Villanova website looking for something to study. That’s when I saw it: Master of Arts in Theatre. I took it as a sign, and I promised myself that no
matter what happened I was going to go to Villanova for Theatre, even if I had
to pay for it. I applied, and then I attended an open house where I met Dr.
Joanna Rotte. I sat with her for a while and discussed the program and my
undergraduate major. She told me that the department
LOVED psychology majors. After leaving the open house, I felt invigorated, I
felt renewed, and most of all I felt happy.

Theatre was what I needed to do, it
was my calling. I was accepted to the program on April 20th, 2012 . . . the same day I decided to tell my family. They were shocked - I had
never made mention of my love for theatre. It has always been
there - the burning desire to create art, to be a part of this beautiful
spectacle that is live theatre. When I was younger, I auditioned for
shows and was even cast in a few. But because of my fear and a lack of confidence, I always backed out. All of my friends in high school were in shows and
musicals, and I would sit in the audience wishing it was me who
was on the stage singing or dancing my heart out. My friends who were a part of
shows always seemed so free when they were performing, and I desperately
wanted to experience that. I just couldn’t get it out of my head.

Before Villanova, I had no idea what a dramaturg was or what
they did. I had no clue how actors learned all of those lines. I was oblivious
to how much work actually went into a production. I didn’t know how to analyze
a script. I couldn't tell you what an objective, obstacle, or even subtext meant. I was fresh new babe, reborn in the fires of live theatre. I felt out of place. But by the end of
orientation, I knew I had made the right decision. I had found my tribe.
It didn’t matter that I had no experience as an actor, stagehand, or scholar.
The people I met changed my life for the better. When I left that first meeting, I felt like I
finally belonged somewhere - I
was finally free to be myself.

Fast forward to the first day of class, I remember feeling
overwhelmed, but as I walked to my car, I was joined by my new friends Peter and
John. I remember how all three of us felt excited and nervous for what this
adventure would bring. We were in this
together. I felt
accepted, and loved for who I was. It was a feeling that I had never felt
before. I always felt that I was hiding who I was, that I was always shrinking
myself down so that I could fit in with those around me, and for the first time I
was in an environment where I was encouraged to be who I was, flaws and all.

As I sit here, a mere two weeks away from leaving this
program behind, I find myself feeling very nostalgic and very thankful. Before
this program I was lost; I was depressed, and I really felt like I had no
future. Coming to Villanova was the best decision I've ever made. I’ve met some of the most inspiring, generous, kind, and
caring people in the entire world. I’ve been broken down, challenged, stretched
(physically, emotionally, and mentally). I’ve been encouraged. I’ve been
loved. Walking away from this program I now know so much about theatre, and my
love and passion for the arts has grown immensely. In many ways, this program has
saved my life. It gave me the opportunity to get up on
that stage and expose the deepest, darkest parts of my soul, and after it was
all said and done, I had a group of people who cried with me, hugged me, and
loved me even more for living my truth.

This program has taught me not only how to be a theatre
practitioner, it has taught me how to be a stronger person - how to live
in the uncomfortable muck of life. It has taught me that no matter how dark the
night seems, the dawn is always around the corner. Villanova Theatre is the
family that I never knew I had, and I am eternally grateful for having the
privilege of spending two years here. It will be bittersweet to say
goodbye to this place, but I know that Villanova has prepared me to be
successful wherever life takes me. I know that no matter what happens, I
will always have my Nova family. Everyone who works in this department
loves their students, and they only want what’s best for us. Thank you to
everyone at Villanova for the best two years of my life.It has been an honor to be a part of
this experience; I am forever changed.

My advice to anyone coming into the program next year: cherish every moment. Run towards that which scares you. I promise, it is
infinitely worth the experience.

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Traveling offers us with the opportunity to open up our hearts to new places, ideas, experiences, and people. In celebration of opening The Light in the Piazza this week, we decided to share some of our experiences falling in love while on journeys across the world with you, our audience.

Brie: "I fell in love with the ponies in Chincoteague, and the owls who to talk to each other at night through the trees. Hoot, hoot!"

Pat: "I fell in love with the trulli in Alberobello, Puglia."

Emily Z: "When I was in London, I got to experience the pub culture there. I completely fell in love with how conversational it was. People weren't there to party or pick up girls. They went in to talk about their day, to connect with people."

Sophia: "I fell in love with the writing of Ernest Hemingway on a class trip to Cuba."

Emily: "I fell in love with tartufo in Piazza Navona."

Seth Schmitt-Hall: "I feel it in my fingers. I feel it in my toes. Love is all around us, and in Europe it grows."

Kim: "I fell in love with Flamenco in Spain. And my husband in St. Lucia!"

Elisa: "The minute I got off the plane in 1980 I fell madly in love with Ireland, and have been in love ever since. The rest is history."

Seth Schmitt-Hall: "I love Paris in the springtime. I love Paris in the Fall."

Hallie: "I fell in love with my spirituality and connection to all people in India. But I especially fell in love with the sassy monkeys who steal juice boxes from kids on their way to school."

Raj: "Here are all the foreign places in which I've fallen in love: England, Ireland, Barcelona, Warsaw, Rome, paris, Sienna, Italy, and Hamburg. I'm a romantic."

Seth Schmitt-Hall: "From Russia with love."

Lauren F: "I realized why I had been in love with Irish music all my life when I finally heard it in person in a quaint little pub in Cork, no bigger than the Vasey green room. It was called Sin É Pub, which simply means "it is". I met one of the musicians that night and fell in love with writing letters to him. We've been pen pals ever since."

Cassie: "I fell in love with my family's history when I was in Lithuania. As soon as I saw the church in which my grandmother got married, I felt so connected to her."

Don't have the time or money to go have your own foreign romance? Get transported to Florence with The Light in the Piazza, running at Villanova Theatre April 1st-13th. Get tickets on our website, or call 610-519-7474.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

The Light in the Piazza follows Margaret and Clara Johnson on a magical trip to Italy in 1953, which unexpectedly leads to discovery, love, and enlightenment. Fortunately for our cast and production team, rehearsing a show filled with sights and sounds like Piazza, lets us explore all things beautiful: history, art, music, architecture, etc.

Our key player, of course, is the beautiful city of Florence herself. Firenze (as the Italians call it) is widely regarded as the “birthplace of the Renaissance,” where many of art’s greatest masters once called home. Thanks to that rich heritage, the city is filled with statues, paintings, cathedrals, and museums that create a feast for the senses. Margaret’s favorite place in the whole city, however, is the piazza because of the openness and the light. From the Greek word for "wide space" or "opening", the piazzas are city squares at town centers or the meeting of roads, where exists the pulse of the community. Often lines with cafés and shops, piazza host tourists and natuves alike who spend time walking, shopping, sightseeing, and dining in these social centers of which Florence contains dozens. Who knows if it's Italy, or Adam Guettel's amazing score, or our wonderful collaborative team, but the piazza is already bringing out the beauty in all of us.

And nothing completes the picturesque piazza more than this era’s gorgeous clothes. Fashion held a particularly important place in the atmosphere of the 1950s, and even more so in Italy. Gender roles became very strictly enforced in the post-war culture of Italy as well as America. This can be seen most clearly in the silhouettes of the era, where women’s figures were featured through A-line dresses and other ultra-feminine shapes. Most women still wore heavy foundation garments such as girdles and corsets to accentuate the natural form of a small waist and curvy bust and hips. Men wore suits that heightened the Y-shape of their torsos and took great care in the details of their fashions such as cufflinks, tie pins, hats, and pocket squares.

Italians took particular pride in fashion both as a daily routine and as a new part of their economic landscape. A large step in bringing Italy to the forefront of the fashion scene was the first multi-designer Italian fashion show, held in Florence in 1951. Here, the spotlight was turned on such pioneer designers as the Fontana Sisters, Contessa Visconti, Emilio Pucci, Baroness Gallotti, and Bertoli, and the fashion press responded with enthusiasm, using phrases like "seductive elegance" and "aristocratic ease." Costume designer Rosemarie McKelvey speaks to what she loves about fashion in the 1950s: “Men and women had their clothes tailored specifically for them and enjoyed the details that went into getting dressed every day. They wore clothes because they loved them.”

Although Margaret and Clara’s journey brings one unexpected event after another. What our trip to Florence can absolutely promise is unending beauty through the exquisiteness of the 50s as well as the splendor of Florence.

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

The Villanova Theatre Department is pleased to announce the Second Annual Playwriting Competition, offered exclusively to Villanova students, alumni, faculty and staff.

The goal of this competition is to foster creative endeavors within the Villanova arts community. The funding and support for this project will be provided by the Sue Winge Playwriting Grant. Mark J. Costello, the 2013 winner, had this to say about the experience: "Being recognized by my alma mater -especially one in memory of a beloved and highly respected member of our community - was an honor beyond words. It has encouraged me to write bigger and better, and I'm excited to see what work the award inspires in the creative geniuses of other Villanova theatremakers."

The guidelines for the competition are as follows:

1. Competition is open to all Villanova students, alumni, faculty and staff.

Scripts are to be original, unpublished, and unproduced.

2. Musicals, monologues, children’s plays, film scripts, and television scripts are ineligible.

3. Winning playwright will receive a $300 stipend. Travel and housing costs are the responsibility of playwright.

4. Winning play will receive two rehearsals and a staged reading in September 2014 that will be open to the public.

5. The Theatre Department will provide a cast and a graduate student director.

6. In addition to a staged reading, the playwright will receive professional feedback from Villanova University’s Theatre Department.

7. Playwrights may submit ONE play per year. Plays submitted that do not win may be resubmitted in subsequent years.

The Sue Winge Playwriting Grant and competition was established in memory of beloved Villanova University employee, Sue Winge, who served the university for many years in the Theatre Department and the President’s Office.

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

When Villanova Theatre chose to include The School For Lies in their 2013-14 season, they knew off the bat that they would need a strong student production dramaturg to help the cast pull the high-style court of Louis the XIV through history and into the modern day - which is really the project of the entire production. Good thing Sarah Totora was willing and available! Previously receiving distinction for her Orals project as Production Dramaturg for How I Learned to Drive in Villanova Theatre's 2012-13, Sarah has done a stellar job of making the foreign world of Paris, 1666 accessible to the cast and audience. Below are just a few of the amazing things she found in her research:

SARAH: Modeled after Molière's play The Misanthrope, David Ives' The School for Lies invites us to pull up a chair in a chic Paris salon, circa 1666...and 2014. Ives infuses the play with contemporary expressions and anachronistic references, bending its 17th-century setting like a funhouse mirror. The result is a world that pulses with then and now, which the cast navigates expertly.

To help everyone find their footing in this curious environment, I researched life and style in the 1600s--an era of carefully prescribed manners and mores. Bows and curtsies, walking sticks, elegant handkerchiefs, and ballet-like poses colored courtly life in Molière's time, and informed our interpretation of characters in The School for Lies. Along the way, I also picked up some pointed advice.

For example, a 1694 British publication called The Ladies' Dictionary advised women against being too skinny: "Bodies that are very Lean and Scragged, we must own, cannot be very Comely: it is a contrary Extream to Corpulency and the Parties Face always seems to carry Lent in it." The same manual cautions a woman not to yield to her beau's advances too hastily, even if she loves him, explaining, "You will get better Conditions if the Enemy does not know how weak you are within. Forgive, Ladies, all the Warlike Gibberish..."

Men, too, had guides to inform their wooing, such as The Academy of Complements, which dates back to 1661. Herein a man could gather sample sweet-talk to try out on the "ladies and gentlewomen" in his life. He might, for example, tell a girlfriend that "her breasts are a pair of Maiden-unconquered Worlds," or that "her neck is polisht Ivory, white as the silver Dove."

The way I see it, primary sources like these are a dramaturgical jackpot--a time capsule that brings to life a given historical moment with words straight from the horse's mouth. More illuminating yet? Take a look at this month's Cosmopolitan magazine, whose cover stories include "The One Thing You Must Never Do With A Guy" and "The Bikini Body Plan: 4 Steps to Smokin'!" Or check out the current issue of GQ for "The Best Places In The World To Take Your Girlfriend (We Checked With Her)." As they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The School for Lies runs February 11th-23rd. Call the Villanova Theatre Box Office at 610.519.7474 or visit www.villanovatheatre.org for ticket information.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Villanova Theatre is so lucky to have KC MacMillan, Villanova Theatre MA grad and professional director in the Philadelphia area, on board as director for School for Lies. Her perspective has been invaluable to the students that are working on the production. In one actor's words, "she is an absolute dream". She was kind enough to answer some questions for Villanova Theatre Talk about School for Lies, her work with student actors, and the influence that Villanova played on her career as a theatre practitioner.

How did your education in the Villanova Theatre MA program shape your trajectory as a theatre artist?

So many ways, directly and indirectly. My major interest at that time was dramaturgy, work I still do frequently at the Lantern, where I am the associate artistic director. The discipline, specificity, and creativity of the dramaturg is a major component of my work as a director. And although I didn’t quite realize I was a director until a few years after I graduated with my M.A., my classwork at Villanova, particularly Jim Christy’s directing and styles courses and Harriet Power’s solo performance course, sent my artist-self in that direction, for sure.

How does it feel to return to your alma mater as a professional guest director?

It’s a real honor. It’s been a real pleasure to work as a peer with Villanova production staff who were here when I was a student (1999-2001). Back then, I was one of Janus’ assistants in the costume shop. To work with her, talking about character, palette, etc, as I watched her do with other directors back then, is a joy. It is also a bit surreal—a measure of how I have changed as a person and an artist. I’m 36; I’ve been directing professionally more than 10 years and I have 22 productions behind me. Most of the time that just feels like my ordinary life. But being back at Villanova, working with graduate students talking about Script Analysis and Dr. Bader’s class—I find myself peering into the past at my 23-year-old Villanova self. Being that person feels like a lifetime ago…but also not really that long at all.

Can you say a few words about School for Lies? What makes it a special show to work on? What about it has been enjoyable so far?

I’m having a great time. It’s a style I have worked in frequently, having directed two previous productions of Moliere and an adaptation of another classical play by David Ives. Or as Ives calls it, a “translaptation,” reflecting his desire to honor the classical playwright’s work, but to adapt it with his own playwright’s tools and the ‘music’ of contemporary language. It’s fun to share the aesthetic of high comedy with these student actors, helping them to unlock the secrets of the verse, find a physical vocabulary for the world, and plumb the text for the jokes. Which are often obscene. The atmosphere of our rehearsal room has been thoughtful, hardworking, joyful.